Heart of Stone
by our dancing days
Summary: It's not real love; just a silly little pretend thing that people claim to be true. It isn't. Honest. / jamesnarcissa.


**Title: **Heart of Stone

**Characters: **James Potter and Narcissa (Black) Malfoy.

**Notes: **This is a short one-shot on the death and life of the romance that is James Potter and Narcissa Black. I hope you enjoy!

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><p>Narcissa Black spends seven years at Hogwarts.<p>

She spends six as the model Slytherin, hexing first years and insulting the Mudbloods that haunt the halls. She spends one in a River in Egypt. Denial. She learns to joke. She learns to laugh. She learns to live. She learns to love. And she also learns that to do any of these things is to be seen as weak.

Narcissa Black isn't weak.

"_Well, Potter, what do you suggest, if traumatizing ickle Hufflepuffs isn't your thing?" James sighs, resting his chin on his hand and gazing out of the window where they sit in a disused classroom. _

"_Well, Black, why don't you, me and your heart of stone go and take a walk in the grounds? It's a nice night. We can go star-gazing." _

"_I apologise. I seem to have misled you. Apparently, you're under the impression that I am the type of girl who enjoys staring at little balls of gas exploding so far away we can barely see them. Really, my mother would be appalled by my lack of manners." _

"_Screw your mother." _

"_I should hope not. Even if it was possible, I don't think even our inbreeding is that extreme." James raises an eyebrow. _

"_I wouldn't be surprised. Do you realise that we're technically related? Not that it hasn't happened before. I'm convinced your parents are cousins." _

"_Sadly, I don't find that offensive at all; just something to think about. Now, Potter, I don't believe in freezing our very cute arses off in the rain, however much the idea seems to appeal to you, so why not a midnight snack? The house elves adore me." _

"_Don't know why. Every story you tell them starts with, 'Well, the house elf's mother, her head was on a plaque and...' You're perfectly horrible to them. You tell them to shove their heads in tomorrow night's turkey." _

"_No. I tell them to shove their heads in the Ravenwhores' turkey." _

"_Is there really a difference?"_

"_Yes. I wouldn't betray my own House like that - it's disgusting." Narcissa makes a face. _

"_You do realise I'm a Gryffindor, right? This little fact hasn't just randomly slipped your insane, inbred, pureblood mind?"_

"_Potter, your sense of class is outstanding. Your mother must've worked in the streets, with all the nonsense pouring from your mouth. I don't even know why I lo- like you. Inferior Muggle-lover." Narcissa snorts, looking away so that he can't see her guilty smile. _

"_You say the sweetest things, Narcissa." _

"_My name is Black, Potter, get it right. B - L - A - C - K." _

"_Alright, Black. You can call me James, by the way. It's a bit... insensitive to call each other by our last names, isn't it?" There is a sense of mocking in his voice. _

"_It's called polite... James." _

Narcissa Black spends seven years at Hogwarts. She spends one year in turmoil. One year in love. Because, as with all girls who grow up, as Wendy did, they learn that childhood love isn't real. It's a fake, a little game children play in their years at school. It's not real love; just a silly little pretend thing that people claim to be true.

It isn't. Honest.

Because it doesn't last long. They fall out of so-called love. They don't get married; they don't have children. They die.

"_Cissy, I think I love you." They are sitting in the Gryffindor common room, lonely, by the fire. _

"_Don't say things like that, _Potter." She _turns away before she can see the mistiness behind her lover's glasses, his eyes filling with tears. She turns away before he can see hers are the same._

He marries the red-head, and they look perfect together. She marries the Slytherin because that's what's expected of her.

She joins the Dark Lord, finding peace in his destruction of Muggles, magic stealers, Muggle-lovers and things that remind her of James. He joins the Order and fights against everything and everyone she started to believe in.

He has a son; a little boy that looks just like him. She helps to attempt to murder him, the boy, because his eyes are green. She has a son, also; a little boy that looks just like his father.

And it's better that way, because he is _Lucius' _child, _Lucius' _son. Not hers.

He dies, at the age of twenty-one, wondering, if he had ever had a heart, where he had placed it all those years ago.

She dies, at the age of sixteen, and leaves her heart buried in the Gryffindor common room, by the fire.


End file.
